


The Whole Kit and Caboodle

by queenallyababwa



Category: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - All Media Types
Genre: Ficlets, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-02-11 16:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12939066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenallyababwa/pseuds/queenallyababwa
Summary: One shots and drabbles centered around the Bavarian Beefcake, Augustus Gloop. Prompts are accepted here or on my RP tumblr @mehrzulieben.





	1. Käse

**Author's Note:**

> Oops, I did it again. Started another Gloop centric one-shot series. What can I say, though? I love those crazy Germans?
> 
> Prompt: "FIC PROMPT: CHEESE. FROM: A STRANGER."

Augustus quickly learned that there is nothing to do in Idaho.

Michael was not exaggerating when he said that his little town in the United States was boring. Of course, Augustus had been excited to go and experience the States; he had been confined to the European continent for most of his short life, save for one sweepstakes contest he won when he was twelve. But even from that excursion, it was only a taste of what the large country had to offer, yes? Surely, there had to be something wonderful that the “Gem State” could offer.

After he and his mother arrived to where the Teavee family resided, however, he quickly was a little disappointed. He tried to stay optimistic, but most of their time in America was spent holed up in the ranch-style house. There were talks of doing something fun, or ever crossing the border to Oregon or Washington to see the Pacific Ocean, but school was starting in a month for the Americans and Mrs. Teavee was trying to organize everything she needed in order to go back to work.

They go to the Potato Museum once. It’s interesting. Augustus gets a look from Michael when he reaches for the mayonnaise packets instead of ketchup to put on his fries from the museum’s cafeteria; it is a look like he has just sworn during Mass, a grave sacrilege.

On their first Wednesday, they all trek to Normalton's waterpark. It’s okay. Mama and Mrs. Teavee spend most of the day in the Lazy River or in the cabana they rented. Mike wants to go on all the rides, even the ones that Augustus doesn’t think look safe. Augustus feels awkward and exposed wearing a tee-shirt with his swim trunks.

But other than that? They don’t do much.

If his mother was disappointed by this trip to the US, she didn’t show it. Instead, she seemed like she was having a good enough time sitting on the back porch, knitting and sipping lemonade with Mrs Teavee, who was trying to re-learn crocheting.

Michael had his video games. In Germany, he didn’t have access to all of his devices and now that he was home, it seemed as though he was making up for lost time. Augustus sat behind him and watched; but, he honestly found many of the games boring and perhaps a little too violent for his taste. It wasn’t like he was any good at them, however. Every time he tried to join his friend in on one of the games, he messed up and Michael got upset. It was better to not mess up at all and be bored than struggle and be made fun of by the American.

The summer days were long and hot here. And seem to drag on forever.

(But all that aside, he doesn’t mind being away from the butcher shop for a while. He’ll be back in Germany soon enough, mopping floors and washing knives and running the cash register.)

In their four weeks, he’s pretty sure he’s not going to see much of the state.

At the end of the second week, however, Mrs Teavee starts raving about this train trip. A train trip where they get to see all that Idaho has to offer.

“Trains are dumb,” Mike had scoffed, pushing his meatloaf across his plate.

“Oh, I think it will be lovely,” Mama had said, reaching for another slice of meatloaf although Augustus is sure she is just being polite. She had looked to Augustus and asked, “What do you think, pumpkin?”

Augustus was not sure. “Ja.”

Any doubt he had about the train, however, came true when they pulled into the depot. That was, of course, when they found out that this wasn’t just a normal train ride.

It was a wine and cheese tasting affair.

And, because this country was not keen on teenagers being near alcohol, Michael and Augustus were subjected to the back of the train, to the “kids” area where they’ll apparently be served some juice and cheese and crackers. There are other kids who have been subjected to joining their parents on this trip, but they’re all pretty engrossed in their phones or talking to each other, so he and Michael shuffle to the back table and sit across from each other.

The train pulls from the station and pulls through the sloping hills and steep mountains of southern Idaho. Michael plays on his phone. Augustus wishes he had a book. Eventually, someone comes around and gives them two grape juices in plastic glasses and sets down on a plate of cheddar and Swiss and buttery crackers. It’s perhaps a little simple and mild than what his mother usually buys, but he’s not one to argue about cheese.

With his boring cheese, he stares out the window and watches the Gem State pass him by.

But about half an hour into the ride, after he’s had his fill of the cheese and has nearly been lulled to sleep by the train, Michael mumbles something and slams his phone down. He calls over one of the waiters.

“You got any kinda out power outlet?” He asks, holding up his phone.

“This train was built in 1929 and has not been refurbished since,” the waiter tells him, shaking his head before walking away.

“Stupid train!” Mike grumbles and falls back into his plush seat, crossing his arms. He stares out the window. Then he stares at Augustus. “So, what, I guess we're supposed to talk or something?”

“We could talk, yes,” Augustus said, nodding.

Mike sighs. They had never really been too keen on talking to each other. Although they had spent two weeks together in Germany, with the American sleeping on Augustus’ bedroom floor, they had never actually talked. There had always been a distraction. Something to do. Something to see. But all they have is empty Idaho and maybe three or four butterfly crackers between them.

“Sooooo……” Mike draws, rolling his eyes. Augustus does not take offense to it, he knows that is just how Mike behaves. “What do you think of Idaho?”

“It is ….nice.” He didn’t want the answer to come out so hesitant, but it did.

Mike makes a noise that is almost like a laugh. He says, “It sucks big time. You don’t have to sugarcoat it.”

Augustus looks sheepishly at the other boy. “I think yes, it does kind of suck.” There is a thrill to saying this English obscenity. He adds, “I thought that my town was boring.”

“It was okay if you like hiking and stuff,” Mike says. “Or violins. There were too many violins everywhere. But hiking is awful and violins are lame so.” He huffs. “I just wanna get out of here.”

“You want to leave Idaho?” Augustus asks.

“Uh, yeah, duh,” Mike says. “What part of ‘this sucks’ don’t you get?” He sighs again. “Just feel like there’s something else out there, you know?”

Augustus knew. He knew how much he longed to leave Mittenwald at times. To not only leave Mittenwald but to not grow up and be a butcher. To not run the family business and do find his own path in life. But of course, he dares not say that to his mother.

“I know.”

Mike brightens up and for a moment the two boys have a moment of shared understanding.

Mike reached for the glass of grape juice. “A toast to wanting to leave our dumb little towns.”


	2. Pubertieren

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Augustus and puuuuuuberty"
> 
> Fun fact, my favorite German verb ever is "pubertieren" which is 'to go through puberty." You never disappoint me, German language.

The year Augustus turned twelve was an unusual one. Just before his birthday, he had stumbled into winning an international contest for a tour of a candy factory and with the blitz of media and the attention and parades and parties, he felt, quite honestly, on top of the world. He wasn’t known around town as Augustus Gloop: the butcher’s son, he was now Augustus Gloop: Golden Ticket winner.

So it was a little hard when he returned to Germany a Golden Ticket loser. It wasn’t like it was a fall from grace or anything, but once word actually spread about Charlie Bucket inheriting Wonka’s chocolate empire, it was a bit of a blow that he’s essentially empty-handed. When he learns what the special prize was, he is a bit sad because becoming Wonka’s second in command meant tastings and making new and delicious candies. But. Charlie was friendly; he said he liked Augustus’ sweater, at least. He does not feel any ill-will towards the other boy and hopes that he would be kind enough to send some samplings of all of the new candy he creates.

Life had to go on though and the week after the tour, he tied his apron around his waist and the butcher shop sign was flipped over. Going back to normal was the best thing for them, anyway.

And though it took a few months to get there, life was getting back to that normal rhythm they had established long ago. Until of course, one day, it didn’t.

In January, the year Augustus turned thirteen - an entire year after finding a Golden Ticket in his mid-breakfast snack - he began to notice something was off. One morning before school, he was brushing his hair, and that was when he noticed it.  He had to lean closer to get a better look in the bathroom’s mirror to confirm that he was seeing what he thought he saw.

(“ _Oh liebchen, you have milkmaid’s skin,” Mama had cooed just years prior as she wiped chocolate ice cream off the corners of his mouth with a paper napkin._

_He hadn’t given much thought to his skin, but it was in that moment, as his mother dabbed his cheeks, he looked closer to her face and noticed for the first time the apparent age to it. The freckles and the dark spots and the fine lines._

_Mama set down the napkin and before she went back to her own ice cream -  hazelnut -  she sighed,“Be thankful for your youth.”_ )

He settled his blonde bangs back down.

The good thing about having such long hair was that he could hide the fact that underneath it all, his forehead had broken out.

He couldn’t say anything to Mama because she was already at work - they had an early morning shipment of pheasants and quails and defeathering was quite a process - so he simply gathered his things and went to school.

Although school had been a source of jokes at his weight or his disinterest in football or anything else that separated him from the rest of the boys, that day, when he looked around at the desks around him at his other classmates, he was comforted by what he noticed. He wasn’t always the most aware and took attention to everyone else, but he saw that most of the other boys had acne too.

On the way home after morning classes finish, he stopped at the pharmacy and bought some medicated soap. He ended up not telling Mama at all; he doubted the other boys told their mothers about three or four pimples.

It was normal. He was normal.

January progressed and his acne under his bangs cleared up a week after it started. But of course, when it left, something came and took his place.

The morning started out fine. Good, even. He was so overtaken by the goodness of that day that he started singing with the radio as he got ready to take a shower before school.

And that was when he noticed it.

As he tried to hit the higher notes in the song, his voice cracked.

He stopped, then tried the note again. And then the same thing happened.

He tried saying something, speaking with the wavering in his voice was all too clear.

( _All those dinners at Platzl came back at him, he and Mama crowded around a table as a man played his contraguitar, the patrons of the restaurant yodeling along with the musician,. Mama’s yodel was always strong and clear. When he was little, he was always little bewildered that his mother could do that, to sing and not quite sing along with folk tunes._

_As they walked home one night when he was four or five, she laughed when he pleaded her to teach him how to throw his voice like that. She said he would get it eventually.)_

Quickly, he showered and changed. Mama was home a little later today, and when he came downstairs into the kitchen for breakfast, she was putting the spread of meat and cheese on the table. He was able to avoid conversation, for the most part, claiming that his throat was sore. He had to insist that he was fine enough for a full day of school and choir rehearsal afterward, even though the dramatics of her feeling his forehead for a fever and asking a load of questions.

In the end, he went to school after swallowing a pill she gave him for his made-up issue. And being a normally very quiet afforded him to not speaking much in class to hide his embarrassment of his cracking voice.

It could not, however, get him out of choir practice for the day. Mama knew the director of Saint Peter and Paul’s children’s choir very well and would definitely be notified if Augustus ditched. And besides, Augustus had never skipped anything in his life and wouldn’t know what to do with the almost two and a half hour time block between school and when he usually reports home.

So he goes.

With Christmas over and not many joyous feast days until Easter, the choir is singing their usual hymns. And with this lull, there is also evaluations and individual attention. Augustus nearly had a panic attack when he arrives in the annex of the chapel to find that the other kids are hanging out, warming up, and in a line to have a ten-minute meeting with the director - just to meet with her and adjust parts for their new set.

His hands sweated profusely around the black binder of his music and he nearly turned white when Frau Bergmann called him in.

They exchanged pleasantries as he slipped into the choir director office. She sat on her bench and asked him to sing a small portion of the song they’d be singing for this Sunday’s service, “ _Großer Gott, wir loben dich_.”

He tried his best, but he was put on the highest tenor portion and it was clear on this day, his voice could not decide if it wanted to be a tenor at all. But when his voice cracked, she laughed.

His stomach sank to his knees. She had never laughed at him before.

“Would you like to try that again?” She asked.

He did.

When his voice cracked again, he flushed and apologized. She stopped playing all together and leaned against the music stand. “How old are you, Augustus?”

“I’ll be fourteen on February seventeenth,” he said.

She nodded. “Yes, that seems about right.” She made a note of something on a little post-it she had near here. “How would you feel about learning the high bass part for next week? Nice and in the middle, just until your voice figures itself out.” She set her pencil back down and assured him. “This happens all the time, Augustus. It’s nothing to be ashamed about.”

He nodded.

After he was dismissed from rehearsal, he went straight home rather than to the butcher shop to wait for Mama to finish work. He had to learn a whole new portion of this song in five days, and he needed to get a head start on it. When he let the dogs out into the fenced-in backyard, he was left entirely alone with the piano.

The monotony of the part felt so strange and dull, that, frustrated, he tried to see exactly how high his voice would be willing to go before it cracked again. Pacing the sitting room where the piano was, he tried yodeling one of the folk songs he had learned.

Pacing and yodeling and cracking

And then the door opening.

“ _Hallo_? Augustus, my child, what would you like for supper?” Mama called entered the front door with a bag full of white-paper wrapped meat.  She then saw that he was not in the living room watching television or up in his room with homework, but rather standing there in the middle of the sitting room in front of the piano.

She smirked. “What are you doing, pickle?”

“Nothing,” he said.

She could see the worry spread over his face, the embarrassment that he had been freaking out about this thing.

“You seem upset about something,” she said, looking around the bag of meat.

“I’m fine, Mama,” he said, insistent, a little harsher than he had ever spoken to his mother. It was not exactly talking back, but there was a snip to it that was not characteristic of the usual pleasantness between them.

She seemed taken back by this spur of attitude. She readjusted the bag and went into the kitchen, ignoring this little spat without a single word.

And then - oh,  _Gott_ \- he pulled the most teenager move he ever could in this situation. He ran upstairs and slammed the door and fell onto his bed.

Fifteen minutes later, there was a soft knock at the door.

“Augustus, my love,” she said from the other side. “Can I come in?”

He sat up on his bed. “Sure.”

The door opened and Mama and two of the daschunds followed her, as they liked the carpet in his room best. 

“I ordered a pizza tonight,” Mama said once she had crossed the threshold.

“Thanks, Mama,” he said.

She sat on the end of his bed, the end sagging with her weight. “I called Frau Bergmann, too. I thought something the children at choir said something that upset you. That happened to me when I was your age and -” She shook her head. “But she told me what happened was not because of the other kids.”

“It was really embarrassing,” he admitted, taking great interest in his hands.

“You could have told me, you know,” she said quietly. “I know I’m not your father but long ago, I was almost fourteen. And it was a very difficult time in my life, too, although for a lot different and . . . messier reasons than yours.”

Pushing aside the thought that his mother also went through this time too and admiringly, had it much worse than a cracking voice, he admitted, “You don’t like to think I’m growing up, though.”

Mama paused and took a breath. “It saddens me that my baby boy is getting older, yes. But no matter how old you and I get, you are always my son.” She kissed his forehead, brushing aside his bangs, totally ignore the fact that he had broken out again.

“I’m sorry about your part,”  she murmured against his temple as she squeezed him tighter.

He shrugged.

She kissed his forehead again and said, brightly, changing the subject, “Now, pizza, yes?”

“Yes,” he laughed.

And so they went downstairs and had their pizza, but afterward, to his semi-horror, Mama presented him with a book she had been saving just for this occasion, entitled, “What’s Going on Down There?”


End file.
